By Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) --- The United Nations celebrated the 50-year-old Declaration of Human Rights on Monday, encouraged by leading human rights champions who said promoting freedom pays off.

The "nonviolent struggle for observance of human rights'' eventually brought about "the collapse of the totalitarian system in our country,'' Czech President Vaclav Havel said.

The playwright-turned-political leader, once a dissident voice against decades of communist rule in Czechoslavakia, was the leadoff guest speaker before the 53-nation Human Rights Commission.

The centerpiece of the commission's annual review of atrocities around the world is the 1948 declaration, drafted as nations emerged from the devastation of World War II.

"Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,'' the declaration says.

It proclaims "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want'' and covers rights such as freedom to work, own property and marry the person of one's choosing.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the declaration will work only if it is backed by constant vigilance by individuals speaking out when they see acts of inhumanity.

Elie Wiesel, the concentration camp survivor whose campaign against bigotry won him the Nobel Peace Prize, said the struggle is ongoing.

"Intolerance continues to be a threat to all of the progress made over the centuries,'' Wiesel said.

The commission already has a list of countries it is monitoring closely: Afghanistan; Burundi; Cuba; Congo; Equatorial Guinea; Iraq; Iran; Myanmar, also known as Burma; Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory; Rwanda; Sudan; and the former Yugoslavia.

As a reminder that the commission still is receiving fresh complaints about alleged atrocities, ethnic Albanian women and children stood in silent protest outside the fortified gates of the United Nations' European headquarters.

Waving white sheets of paper, the protesters demanded an end to Serb "persecution and massacres of the Albanian population'' in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Independent human-rights organizations like Amnesty International say the list of countries is too short and have proposed adding names like China, Algeria, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Amnesty deplores the decisions by the 15-nation European Union and the United States to call off attempts to pass a resolution criticizing China because they have seen improvement by Beijing.

The commission can do little more than condemn abuses, but that has been enough to spur China and other potential targets to mount extensive lobbying campaigns with developing countries, which dominate the commission, to avoid international opprobrium.

These investigators can turn their attention to any country, which has led to examinations of the death penalty in the United States and religious freedom in Germany.